Scientists are trying to unravel the secret of ancient stone balls

Over the mystery of strange stone products, archaeologists have been racking their heads for years. What is it and how they were made – the answers to these questions are not yet available.

Carved stones of unusual shape were found in Scotland, England, Ireland and the Orkney Islands in the North Sea. On their surface are cut out protruding hemispheres – from 3 to 100, as well as intricate ornaments. The diameter of almost all the artifacts is about 7 centimeters.

Archaeologists can not understand what was the purpose of these balls. Numerous versions have been put forward, from household ones – sinkers for fishing, weights for scales, tools for processing skins – and up to the point that with the help of artifacts they were guessing or committed religious rites. Some scientists even believe that such stones were used as rollers for transporting stones for the construction of megaliths such as Stonehenge. But the main mystery is how these balls were made.

The National Museum of Scotland has laid out on its website 3D models of 60 such balls. To do this, each of them had to be photographed 150-200 times using a special camera with high resolution. Thanks to the use of such technology, archaeologists could see new, previously unobtrusive details on the balls. Scientists hope that 3D modeling will help unravel the technology of making mysterious artifacts.